


Confessions of a Teenage Hufflepuff

by luminousbeings



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 2 AM things, Adventure, Derek Has Feelings, Gen, Harry Potter AU, Humor, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sourwolf Hale and the Chamber of Secrets, Voice of reason!Stiles, hufflepuff!Stiles, slytherin!derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminousbeings/pseuds/luminousbeings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Stiles prepare to confront the Heir of Slytherin, with questionable success.<br/>--<br/>He nods curtly and pulls the cloth off the second, cage-like package, which ends up being – drumroll please – a cage. With something inside. “And I brought this” — he hefts it for emphasis – “if all else fails.”<br/>“A bird?” I wonder. I lean down to look at it. Maybe it’s my imagination, but he seems to be begging me to save him from Derek’s craziness. Join the club, Featherface. Join the club.<br/>“A phoenix,” he corrects me. “Its tears can heal any injury. With the notable exception of death.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessions of a Teenage Hufflepuff

**Author's Note:**

> So this was one of the ideas we were bouncing around at 2 AM, and then I kind of wrote it up at 3:00 in a caffeinated haze, and all I know at this point is that I cannot be held responsible for anything I do after midnight. Muggles and mudbloods beware.

A long, low hiss comes out of Derek’s mouth, and the sink in the girl’s bathroom slides apart with a groan, revealing a dark, endless, and likely death-ful tunnel leading straight down into what is, on the basis of Murphy’s Law, life hating me, et cetera, probably more darkness. And death-ful-ness. And other similarly cheerful stuff.

“Woah,” I breathe. “You’re a parselmouth?”

“No,” says Derek, looking down, down, down into the cavern underneath where the sinks used to be. “That’s the only word I know.”

“Oh. I just figured…you being a Slytherin and all…”

Derek sighs in a world-weary kind of way. “Stiles, for what-I-reeeally-hope-for-your-own-sake-is the last time, they don’t teach us special Dark Arts classes in Slytherin. And even if they did, parseltongue is an inherited ability; just because _you_ happen to be descended from Helga Hufflepuff doesn’t make _all_ of us pureblooded descendants of our respective House founders.”

“Oh,” I mutter again, feeling stupid. And vaguely racist. “So what’s that you just said, there?” I ask, mainly to distract from the icky lingering feeling of, you know, racism.

He hesitates. “The witch I learned it from said it meant ‘hello.’”

“In that case it’s an awfully lengthy hello.”

Derek’s face colors, although his impatient expression doesn’t waver. “I was thinking that myself.”

“She was probably lying. She probably taught you how to say something like, ‘My name is Derek and I am a poopy head.’”

“She did not!” Derek says indignantly.

“She totally did!” I insist.

“Did _not_!”

“Did too!”

“Is that you, Cora?” another, much more cheerful and eager, voice joins us. Derek and I look around at the toilet stalls, where Myrtle is hovering. “Oh, it’s you two again,” she says dolefully.

“Hi, Myrtle,” I wave. “How’s life treating you?” I freeze. “Or – well – ”

The ghost lets out a horrible wail. “You mean how’s _death_ treating me?” she snaps. “Oh, about the same. The same as it has for the last. Fifty. _Years_!” She collapses sobbing into one of the stalls, out of sight.

“Good job getting rid of her so quickly,” says Derek.

“I wasn’t trying to get rid of her.”

He tilts his head. “Well in that case you’ve done a terrible job and I rescind my compliment.”

Myrtle pops back up, her bad mood cleared as quickly as it had come. “You’re going to rescue Cora, right? That’s why you’re here, trying to get rid of the giant killer snake?”

“That’s right,” I tell her, even as the phrase _giant killer snake_ is doing interesting things to my insides. “But for all we know this isn’t even the Chamber. It might just be another dead-end. I – I mean -” But before I can revise my wording, Myrtle is in the throes of another crying fit, whooshing back and forth across the room in her agony like a balloon losing air.

“You know,” says Derek wearily, over the sounds of Myrtle sobbing and gasping, “if I didn’t know better I’d say you’re doing this on purpose.”

Luckily I’m saved from having to answer that by the ghost insisting between wails that, “It’s not a dead-end!” and, “that’s the Chamber – I saw her go in loads of times.”

“Who, Cora?” I ask. “Why would she—”

“I suspect we’ll find out soon enough,” Derek says grimly.

“Don’t worry,” says Myrtle in a soothing voice. Her tears are abruptly gone again. Derek doesn’t seem to have noticed. “I’ll wait for you to come back. You can tell me the whole heroic story.” Her gaze is locked onto Derek. I wiggle experimentally a little to see if the movement will shift Myrtle’s attention. It doesn’t.

“I don’t really care what you do,” says Derek, not even glancing at her. “So long as we don’t slip on your emo on our way back out of here.”

Bizarrely enough, Myrtle just laughs. _Giggles,_ even. “If that big ol’ snake gets you,” she remarks, almost hopefully, “I could do with a permanent roommate.” She winks at Derek. Oh. _Oh._ Well that’s –

“That’s nice,” says Derek. “Now go back to your toilet so we can finish our preparations.”

“Yeah,” I add. “It’s been great talking to you, but you’ve got to go to a better place now – I mean – ”

So, of course, sobbing, crying, flailing, et cetera, ensue.

“I just meant that – ” But okay, fine, apparently nobody cares what I meant because Derek’s focused on mentally navigating his the way down the tunnel and Myrtle literally just cut me off with an otherworldly screech and a loud, somewhat theatrical splash as she returns to her porcelain throne.

“Anyway,” says Derek, like we’d just had a minor interruption instead of a hysterically sobbing paranormal encounter of the propositional variety. “Help me bring this stuff down into the chamber.” He gestures to the two cloth-covered packages he’d dragged into the bathroom; one long and thin, the other short and rounded. Almost like a cage or something, but nope, not gonna go there, definitely not goin’ there.

“Sure,” I say, eyeing the packages warily. “What are they?”

He grunts something unintelligible and shoves the long, thin package at me. It’s heavy. Like a sword. Looks like a sword too.

“It looks like a sword,” I say, because obviously I don’t know any better than to comment on suspicious, Derek-related things.

“That’s because it is a sword,” says Derek. “Godric Gryffindor’s sword to be precise.”

“ _What?”_ I yell. Because – _what??_ “Wasn’t that on display in Dumbledore’s office?” There is only a brief, doom-ful kind of silence in response. “Did Professor Dumbledore say we could take that?” I demand.

Derek takes the cloth-wrapped sword, turns it over in his hand thoughtfully, and mutters, “Well, he didn’t we _couldn’t_ …”

“ _Dude!”_

“You’d prefer we go down there unarmed and defenseless?” he snaps back.

“But why does it have to be _this_ sword?” I whine.

“It has to be _this_ sword, Stiles, because this sword can destroy nearly anything. All it needs to do is break the surface and the object is as good as dead. Much like a basilisk bite.”

Point taken.

I look at the self-conscious bird doubtfully. “What if it doesn’t want to cry?”

Derek gives it a dark look. Featherface cowers. “Oh, it’ll cry when I’m done with it.”

Featherface looks at me pleadingly. As if I could dissuade Derek when he got all motivated about something. I give it a helpless shrug in response.

“All right, bonding time’s over.” Derek throws the cloth back over the cage. “As exciting as it must be to finally to commune with someone on your intellectual level, we need to get down there and save Cora. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

He takes hold of the sword in one hand and the cage in the other and climbs up on to the ledge where the sinks used to be, letting his feet dangle into the oblivion that leads – presumably – into the Chamber of Secrets. I swallow hard.

Derek notices that I haven’t joined him on the ledge to the chamber and glances back. There’s an odd look in his eye. Nervous, almost. “Stiles. Come on.”

“I dunno, man,” I say, backing up. “This seems very much like purchasing underwear at a garage sale.” He doesn’t respond, so I add, “And by that I mean a bad idea.”

“Fine,” he says brusquely, not meeting my eye. “Go back, then. We both know you would’ve been more hindrance than help anyway.”

I frown, stung. “Well, I’m not letting you go down there alone.”

Derek has his back to me, looking down into the tunnel. I can’t see his expression. “So don’t,” he says, and this time I definitely didn’t imagine the vulnerable note in his voice. Derek is – scared. He’s just as scared as I am, and it’s not even a choice anymore.

I’m reminded suddenly, weirdly, of that time Derek introduced me to his friend Draco. How did he describe Hufflepuffs, again?

Oh, right. Loyal and stupid. Like dogs. I love dogs. They drool a lot, though.

“Is this more loyal, or more stupid?” I ask.

“Definitely more stupid,” says Derek.

I clamber up on the ledge next to him and grab the cage. At least I’ll be able to make sure Featherface isn’t too jarred by the fall. “To Helga Hufflepuff, then.”

Derek gives a small but sincere half-smile. “And to her noble descendants.”

And down we plummet.

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short, my sister and I decided after extensive debate that Derek would be a Slytherin, because he is ambitious and clever and willing to do whatever it takes to protect his own. As far as Stiles was concerned, we were stuck between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but then he became a Hufflepuff in my mind because that would be adorable.  
> (#goodreasonsforthings)


End file.
